Thanks to Pooh, Wing Chun, and the crew on the ER forums.
Hmm, no previouslys this week. But, just in case you live under a rock the size of Des Moines, previously on ER, Lucy and Carter got stabbed, and Lucy died as a result.
Snowy street. Mark "Rogaine Cowboy" Greene and Elizabeth "Esprit De" Corday walk towards the hospital. Elizabeth quizzes Mark on David "Holling" Greene's ice-fishing excursion, but Mark doesn't know much about it. Dave "Rhymes With 'Hootchie'" Malucci nearly runs over them on his bike, and as Dave whizzes past, Mark mutters that he can't believe Dave rides "that thing" in the winter; Elizabeth grumbles, "Damn, Malucci." Turns out she forgot she had a case conference with Romano: "Malucci admitted the patient, and I've left my notes at my apartment." Mark leers that that'll teach her to sleep over at his place, and Elizabeth grouses that she'll see him later. They kiss (ick), and she heads back towards the El; Mark continues on towards the ER, and when he finds Dave tinkering with his bike, he nags Dave for not securing the bike properly. "Thanks, Mom," Dave snarks. "Tired of nagging me for not wearing a helmet?" Mark says acidly that he'd never want to come between Dave and brain death. Bit late for that anyway, Mark.
Inside, "Lollapa" Luka Kovac briefs Kerry "The Cane Mutiny" Weaver on the patients left on the board. Kerry asks Mark to finish up with Luka while she sees to a patient, and Luka tells Mark about a couple more patients, and asks that somebody please call him with the enzyme results on a rule-out MI. Yeah, he cares. He cares a lot. We get it. Mark clears Luka to leave as he heads to the lounge. Meanwhile, Carol "Pedal To The Meddle" Hathaway heads for a ringing phone, but Andrew "Last Name Here" snatches it before she has a chance to answer, then hands it off to Abby "Yale" Lockhart while telling Carol, "It's my job to answer the phones." "Just trying to help," Carol says flatly. "And I appreciate it," Andrew says saucily. Carol doesn't acknowledge him. Whatever. Abby picks up and has a bitchy conversation with someone -- her estranged husband, I presume -- about the fact that she called three days ago and needs "to talk to [him] about the late payments," and she tells him he'll "have to sell" something, but she doesn't care how he does it, she just wants him to make the payments. She repeats the "make the payments" part a couple of times in exasperation; Carol listens. When Abby hangs up, she fidgets, and Carol gives her a sympathetic look. Abby confirms that "that was my soon-to-be-ex-husband." "Sounds bad," Carol says as they walk down the hall. Abby confides that her future ex has taken "a flyer" on some stocks with her loan money, and Carol tries to sound encouraging, and they reach the door of the lounge to find Luka, bundled up and announcing, "Okay, I'm leaving before I fall over. Till time, ladies." He bows. Abby gestures at him and says sadly, "Men." Yeah, don't get me started.
Elizabeth lets herself into her apartment; Isabel "Mama" Corday greets her with a tone of surprise. Elizabeth begins to explain why she's come back, but in the middle of her observation that Mama Corday looks tired and must have stayed up to watch Charlie Rose, who should wander into the breakfast nook in his underwear but Holling. On the one hand, har dee predictable har. On the other hand -- heh. Go, Holling and Mama Corday. Holling greets Elizabeth awkwardly. MC says brightly that Holling "came over for breakfast." "In boxers and slippers? My slippers?" an aghast Elizabeth wants to know. "Hope you don't mind," Holling mutters. Elizabeth asks what happened to ice-fishing. "Uhhhh -- didn't make it," Holling says. "I can see that," Elizabeth says, not even trying to lift her jaw from the floor, and as the Electra Complex Skillet clocks me from behind, we go to credits. Well, at least we can blame Elizabeth's inexplicable attraction to Mark on genetics.
Fade back up on Chez Corday, with Elizabeth tensely enduring the giggling goodbyes between MC and Holling. Holling takes his leave, and MC comes over and offers Elizabeth more coffee, and Elizabeth gripes that she drank nearly the whole pot while waiting for the two of them to say goodbye. Why hasn't Elizabeth gone back to the hospital -- doesn't she have a meeting in the first place? Anyway, MC snickers at Elizabeth's obvious discomfiture; Elizabeth joins the entire viewing audience in failing to see any humor in the situation. MC begins to chastise Elizabeth for her ageist views on sex; Elizabeth wants to know if MC thinks it's "such a good idea" to carry on with Holling. MC tries again to point out that she's "a little older," but she's not dead; Elizabeth reminds MC that Holling's wife is in fact dead, "recently." MC says, "Well, bloody well good for him" for getting on with things; Elizabeth makes shocked sounds. Need I go on? The conversation wanders on in this vein for a bit, Elizabeth asking whether they used protection and pointing out rather accusingly that Holling is "my boyfriend's father," and just as I think to myself that I'd rather watch the episode of from which the writers obviously lifted this, MC tells Elizabeth that she's always cared too much what other people think, "even as a little girl." Elizabeth denies this, and when MC presses the point, we get to the heart of the matter when Elizabeth sneers, "Well, how would you know -- did the nanny tell you?" "Oh yes, Elizabeth, you were so neglected," MC says with weary sarcasm. "Don't pretend to know me when you don't," Elizabeth snips. MC says she knows Elizabeth better than Elizabeth thinks she does. Elizabeth says in response that "this" could get very complicated, and MC asks why Elizabeth always fears that relationships will go wrong. "Well, perhaps because ours hasn't exactly gone right," Elizabeth quavers. "I have to get to work." She bustles out in a huff.
Admit desk. Dave gives Jing-Mei "Day" Chen guff for doing paperwork when they have patients waiting. Chen informs him with an air of fatigue that she isn't even on yet, then adds that she's doing chart reviews for Carter's and Lucy's patients. Dave apologizes and offers to help; she turns him down. Elsewhere, Abby is on the phone, reciting test results to Luka; Kerry says into Abby's other ear that she has a couple of interesting cases for her, including a foreign body up the nose (heh) and hemorrhoids (bleh).
On the other end, Luka makes "good, good" noises into his cellphone while driving, says the patient should follow up with cardiology, mentions ruefully that he has the night shift all week, and says he'll see Abby tomorrow. A ball rolls out into the street Luka is driving down -- do kids even play with balls anymore? -- and he looks annoyed and hits the brakes, and a kid chases the ball out into the street as her friend shouts, "Laura!" A shot from outside the car reveals that Luka drives a Saab. Luka owns a Saab? And a cellphone? Who'd he sell his boat to, anyway -- George Soros? Anyway, Luka stops about a foot short of the kid, and she pauses for a second to look at him before continuing across the street after the ball, and just then another car pulls around to pass Luka's car and hits the kid, and she slides up the windshield and tumbles to the ground in front of the other guy's car. Luka stares into the other guy's car and gets a good look at him before the other guy throws it in reverse and peels out. Luka jumps out of the Saab to go help the girl, and as he gets out, the other guy roars past, and Luka yells at him to stop, but the car disappears as Luka kneels beside the girl, who is moaning in pain, and tells her that he's a doctor and he's going to help her. He tells her to breathe easy and asks her name and where it hurts. She wails, "Laura -- my leg!" He holds her face and tells her to keep her head still. I add "go to Chicago and wander around in traffic" to my to-do list.
Back at the hospital, Kerry supervises Abby as she sorts out a nose piercing gone awry. Kerry then tells Abby to do the initial work-up on the hemorrhoids patient, a minor-league Hey, It's That Guy! who is going by the name "Ron Perth" in this episode. Evidently, Ron had his hemorrhoids "banded" the week before, but the bleeding hasn't stopped, which concerns him, so he came in to the ER; he has to fly back to Denver at five for his girlfriend's birthday, though, so he wants Abby to give him a cream or something that will "shrink it down" because he'd planned to take his girlfriend dancing. Abby advises him to change the plan to a candle-lit dinner, and asks Lily to order a few tests and "prep for anoscopy." Ouch -- I don't like the sound of that. Neither does Ron, who asks, "Is that what I think it is?" "I'll be gentle," Abby whispers. Ew.
Street. Laura wails for her mother. Luka tells her that her sister went to get her mom, and adds that he has to cut open her pants (nope, no comment, no sirree) so he can look at her leg. Laura's mom arrives on the scene, cutting through a gaggle of gaping bystanders and yowling, "Oh my god!" Luka reassures Laura's Mom that he's a doctor and he's already called 911, and tells her that Laura has a broken leg and possibly a broken rib as well. "Can't you do something?" LM shrieks. Luka asks one of the bystanders to borrow a broom from a lady on the street so he can splint Laura's leg, and he cuts open Laura's pantleg to see if there's any damage to the artery.
Two teenage girls with long brown hair sit in chairs with Carol. One of them has a bad wig on and looks like Kristy MacNichol [sp?], and she and her friend exchange a look before Kristy says, "We -- we heard you can't tell anybody anything we say to you." Carol says that depends. Kristy stammers, "It's about . . ." and Carol prompts, "Sex?" before saying that, as long as there's no abuse and the guys involved are under eighteen, everything they say has to remain confidential. Non-Kristy confirms that Carol couldn't tell their parents. "No, I couldn't," Carol says. Kristy says, "You promise." Carol says somewhat impatiently that she does. The girls share another look. Carol clearly doesn't want to waste time on these two and says she can't help them if they don't talk to her. More looking at each other; Kristy finally says they think they might have "caught something." Carol wants to know what they think they might have caught, and Non-Kristy says, "We heard some syphilis was going around school." "I see," Carol says with a judgmental smile, and tells them to come with her.
"My chest hurts!" Laura screeches. I know she just got hit by a car, but damn, that girl has a really annoying voice. "What is it?" Laura's Mom asks, and Luka says he's worried that Laura is bleeding internally. LM starts hyperventilating and wondering where's the ambulance, and Luka tells her it'll come soon, but LM doesn't want to wait and whimpers, "Let's, let's drive her!" Luka doesn't seem to think much of this idea, but he sits up straight and looks around until he spots a guy loading stuff into the back of a big van, and he runs over to the guy and introduces himself and asks the guy if he can make room for Laura in the back. "You want to put her in the van?" the guy asks incredulously, and Luka tells him Laura has to get to the hospital right away, "it's urgent," so the guy agrees, and they head back over to where Laura's lying.
Elizabeth tells Mark about walking in to find Holling with her mother. Mark finds it funny and starts laughing, but Elizabeth fumes that it's "bizarre" and not funny at all, and Mark tries to calm her down, and he points out that "they're adults," but Elizabeth worries that they will "keep on doing it," and worries about where they'll keep on doing it, "your place or mine," and Mark stifles a laugh and promises to talk to Holling when Holling comes in to see the pulmonologist that afternoon, and then he cracks up again and Elizabeth looks horrified.
The van driver looks over his shoulder, worried, as Laura continues to pant and wail. She says she can't breathe. Luka says a broken rib may have punctured Laura's lung, and he listens to her chest and asks her to look to the right and then to the left, but when he prompts her to look to the left, she doesn't respond, and Laura's Mom shouts, "Oh my God!" Luka reports that he doesn't hear any breath sounds, and LM demands to know what's happening, and Luka explains that Laura has a tension pneumothorax, which means that an air leak has collapsed her lung and the pressure is preventing her heart from beating. Thank you, writers, for having Luka explain that, because I never knew what that meant before. Luka starts to swab Laura's chest with a cotton ball, telling LM that he's going to stick a needle into Laura's chest to relieve the pressure. No sooner has he inserted said needle, of course, than the van goes over a bump, and you'd think the driver could have steered around it since we all saw it coming FROM WICHITA, but Luka just looks grim and takes the needle out. "Wait, why is she bleeding?" LM blares, and Luka admits that he might have nicked an artery when they went over the bump, and LM bleats, "An artery?" Luka hands her a pad and tells her to keep pressure on the source of the bleeding, and the driver calls out over his shoulder, "Is something wrong back there?" and LM yells, "These pads are soaked!" and Luka tells her just to keep pressing them and whips out his cellphone: "Yeah, this is Kovac. Yeah, I'm coming in with a major trauma -- clear a room and get four units of O-neg. Yeah." Suddenly, I have a flashback to my old boss, an Austrian guy almost as good-looking as Goran Visnjic, who had very good English but prefaced every sentence, curse, pronouncement, or utterance of any kind with the word "yeah," so we heard a lot of "yeah, shit!" around the office. Anyway, Luka hangs up and yells at the driver to "go faster -- we need to be there now!"
Back from commercial, we fade in on the back of the van. Luka gives Chuny, Peter Benton "Kenobi," and Cleo "Alt-Control-Delete" Finch the bullet as they hoist Laura out: "Automobile versus ten-year-old girl, blunt trauma to the right lower chest, and fractured left femur." Laura's Mom clambers down from the van, followed by Luka, as the driver looks on, concerned. As they head inside, Luka says they'll need to set up for a chest tube, and the driver calls after them, "You need any more help?" Poor guy. Luka yells, "No, got it, thank you!" Through the doors they go; Luka relays the fact that he had Laura stable but then lost her pulse with decreased breath sounds on the right, and that a needle thoracostomy helped somewhat, but he "may have nicked her intercostal" (if anyone cares, "intercostal" means "located between the ribs"). Mark appears and asks, in his patented Tone Of Passive-Aggressively Veiled Accusation, "What happened?" Luka tells him the van hit a bump while he had the needle inside. Peter wants to know why Luka didn't wait for the paramedics, and as the team wheels Laura into a trauma room, Luka explains that he waited seven minutes, but he thought he might lose her if he didn't get there "right away." Mark tells him loftily that the paramedics called in, having arrived on the scene two minutes after Luka left. Lydia tells Laura's Mom to wait outside as the team calls off Laura's stats. Luka stations himself by Laura's head. Peter gets ready to insert a chest tube as Laura yelps that she wants her mom, and Luka tells her that her mom is just outside. Peter says "let's move" a few times, and I make a mental note to design a drinking game around that verbal tic; Mark tells Luka, "You've been off for an hour, we got it from here." Not surprisingly, Luka says he'll stay, because He Cares. In case you didn't get that. Because you live under an extremely heavy boulder of the type usually found in Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Anyhow. Someone calls out that Laura has a pulse ox of 92, which prompts Luka to say that they'll have to intubate, and just then the chest tube is inserted and Cleo drones, "Whoa," and Peter snaps, "Chest full of blood," and Cleo observes that it looks Luka did hit the artery. Luka looks ill and glances out at Laura's Mom, who is shifting nervously from foot to foot in the hallway, and Mark tells someone to call the OR and reserve a room. Then he looks down and says snidely in Luka's general direction, "It looks like it was more than a nick." Yeah, fine, Mark. Luka messed up. That makes you a better doctor than he, and a better-looking one to boot. Oh, wait. It makes you neither of those things, so either get a sack and talk your self-righteous priggish trash to Luka's face, or shut up. In fact, forget that first part and just shut up. Chuny shouts that Laura's pressure has dropped to fifty; Luka holds Laura's face and tries to get her attention, and Mark says that she's "unresponsive" as Peter reports that they've already taken more than a liter of blood out of the chest. Luka grimly prepares to intubate; Peter gets ready to perform a right-side thoracotomy.
"Not much longer now," Carol tells Kristy, whose real name is Andrea. Kerry does a pelvic exam; Andrea asks of her Non-Kristy friend, "Is Terri okay?" and Carol says Terri's fine and waiting for Andrea in chairs. Kerry spots "cervical bleeding, and thick and white dysplasia with papules," and Andrea asks, "Is that syphilis -- dysplasia?" Kerry tells her soothingly that she doesn't see any sign of syphilis, but that they'll have to wait for the blood test to know for sure. Andrea asks if she can go, and Kerry says no, she'd like Andrea to wait for the HIV test to come back, and it shouldn't take long. "Am I all right?" Andrea asks. "Let's wait and see what the test says," Carol tells her, and Kerry snaps off her gloves, takes Carol aside, and murmurs that Terri looks okay, but Carol should "call pathology and get them to do a stat Pap smear" for Andrea. Carol nods, then says to Andrea in a tone of forced heartiness, "Let's get you dressed."
Abby comes into Ron's curtain area. After he urges her to put her hair up in a ponytail, so as not to drag her locks through any open wounds -- oh, sorry. He didn't say that. I did. For the love of god, can't the hairstylists figure out how to style a flattering ponytail? Doctors and nurses do not work with their hair down! Put! The hair! Of the female staffers! Up! Up up up up UP! Jesus! Okay, so Abby tells Ron that his blood count is normal, and he assumes that that's good, and Abby agrees, but cautions that "sometimes it takes a while for a crit to show a blood loss." Ron protests that he feels "okay," but Abby says she'd hate to let him get on the plane and have him start to bleed out "at thirty-five thousand feet." I don't think the plane clean-up crew would like that either, especially considering the, uh, source of the bleeding, but moving right along, Ron says resignedly, "You want to do another test." Abby says she does, and explains that she'll draw some blood, tag it with a radionucleotide, and re-inject it via IV so she scan him and check for bleeding. Ron consents, as long as he won't "glow in the dark." Abby calls the test "quick and painless, I promise." Then Ron changes the subject and wants to know, "Is it really the thought that counts?" Abby doesn't get it, so he refers again to his girlfriend's birthday, saying that he considered jewelry, but if he goes there, "I'll have to go big, right?" Abby preps for the blood draw and tells him that the best present she ever got from her ex was a surprise picnic he packed himself. "Ah, romantic," chuckles Ron. "Cheap," shrugs Abby. Enter Kerry, who wants to know what's up with Ron; Abby says she wants to rule out a GI bleed, so she's doing a nuclear medicine scan. Kerry observes mildly that they "don't do those very often down here," and asks about the results of the other tests; Abby says they came back normal. Kerry nods to herself and asks in her patented "I won't embarrass you in front of the patient, but when we get into the hallway, I'll really let you have it" voice if she can talk to Abby for a minute. As you can probably guess, once they leave the room, Kerry remarks on the normal test results and asks why Abby is ordering another, much more expensive test. Abby says Ron "doesn't look well" to her -- pale skin, dull eyes -- but Kerry dismisses Abby's gut feeling as "hardly diagnostic of a bleed" and tells her to discharge Ron. Abby looks at the chart, then at Kerry as she walks away, and goes back into Ron's room. "Is there a problem?" Ron wants to know. "No," Abby smiles, and says she just has to get his blood sample to the lab.
Trauma room. Peter asks for more suction as the machines bleep ominously. Peter calls for a certain type of suture and, long story short, manages a difficult tie-off called the Kennedy maneuver while nurses hang more units of blood and auto-transfuse Laura as well. Luka looks on sternly as Mark compliments Peter on his technique and goes door to deal with a seizure, and Luka asks if they should spin another crit; Peter shoots him a look and shrugs, "Yeah. Fine." Cleo pulls Luka away -- with her bloody glove on his ungowned arm, might I add -- and urges him to come with her to talk to Laura's Mom, but just then Laura's pressure crashes. Peter doesn't get it -- her chest is dry, he just stopped the bleeding there. Luka says to check the belly again, she must still be bleeding somewhere. Cleo checks the ultrasound and confirms Luka's diagnosis, saying Laura's "got a bellyful of blood." Luka says something about popping a capsule, and Peter grumbles that they should have checked the belly all along, then begins shouting marching orders to get Laura up to the OR. As they pull Laura out of the trauma room towards the elevators, Laura's Mom jumps up and asks what's going on. Luka tells her they're taking Laura to surgery and points LM out to Peter, who tells her to come with them. They board the elevator. Peter tells Luka he's done enough and to step off. Luka pleads, "I want to stay with her, she's my patient," and Peter waves him off and says, more gently than he usually would, "Not anymore." The doors close, and Luka sort of gesticulates at them in frustration with his bloody gloves. Cleo, right behind him, grabs his arm again with her bloody glove and suggests that he go home and get some sleep. "You think I'm going to sleep?" Luka snorts, and he turns and gallops up the stairs, taking them two at a time and ignoring Cleo as she calls after him.
Carol comes into a curtain area to find Andrea and Terri gossiping on a cellphone. They get off the call and look at her expectantly. Carol asks Terri to leave so she can speak to Andrea privately; Terri is reluctant, but Andrea tells her it's okay. After Terri gathers her things and goes out to chairs, Carol closes the door and tells Andrea without preamble that her test results have come back, and the Pap smear showed some abnormal cells: "You might have cervical cancer. We have to do a biopsy, just to make sure." Andrea looks sick: "Cancer? Was it caused by having sex?" Carol tells her she got it from an infected partner: "It's called HPV, human papilloma virus. But not everybody with HPV --" "No, you can't tell my parents," Andrea interrupts, on the point of tears. Carol sits beside Andrea and says softly, while fixing Andrea with The Gaze Of Saintly Sympathy, "Andrea, if you have this, you need to be admitted to the hospital." Andrea says furiously, "Anyway, they're in Europe. You said everything I told you was confidential." Carol says that Andrea could get very sick if she doesn't get treated, and "we have to inform your partner." "We"? Stay out of it, Carol. Andrea looks away. "Andrea," Carol prompts her. Andrea says she doesn't know which of her partners infected her. Carol adopts a wildly inappropriate and obnoxious "you've gotta be kidding"-type tone and asks, "Well, how many have you had?" "Not sure," Andrea whispers. "We -- we have these parties." Her lip trembles. Carol looks away from her, shocked that the writers would rip off that Frontline special so shamelessly.
Upstairs, Luka dashes down a hallway and catches up to Laura's gurney. "Peter, I wanna scrub in," he says breathlessly. Peter does that thing where he rolls his eyes without actually rolling them and says no. Luka asks why not. "You're not a surgeon," Peter tells him, and Luka shouts that he's not asking to operate, but Peter waves him away again and tells him to wait, and he'll find Luka "as soon as I'm finished." Peter tells Chuny he's got it, and as he enters the OR area, he calls to Luka, "She'll be all right." Chuny asks Luka if he's going back down to the ER. "In a minute," he murmurs, standing at the double doors leading to the OR and watching Laura. Chuny leads Laura's Mom to the waiting area. Luka broods. If any man on earth can wear a black turtleneck better than Goran Visnjic, I'd like to meet that man and shake his hand.
Chen reviews charts with John "Heal Thyself" Carter and updates him on his patients' conditions; we pan around from Chen past a product-placed iBook to Carter, slumped in a wheelchair. Carter, rumpled and wearing sweats, looks physically uncomfortable. Chen finishes up, and he thanks her, and she says, "No problem." Carter asks if she's covering Lucy's cases too, and Chen half-shrugs, "Told Weaver I didn't mind." Carter looks pensive: "How was the memorial service?" "Okay. It was nice," Chen tells him, then admits, "A little weird." I don't know if I understand why Carter couldn't have attended; if he's able to sit up in a wheelchair, he probably could have gone. Maybe he didn't want to, but we never find out. Carter asks after "everything else downstairs," and Chen snorts, "Ah, same old thing -- how are you doin'?" Carter grunts that he's fine, that he knows everyone who works there, so people "drop by all day"; he sounds a little annoyed by that. He adds that his grandmother even stopped in. Chen says she thought they no longer spoke, and Carter observes that "there's nothing like a near-fatal stab wound to put a different spin on things." Then he tries to shift into a more cheerful gear, saying he'll come back to work in a couple of weeks, "get rid of this bag, maybe take up skydiving." "You do that," Chen giggles. Carter laughs a little and tells her to "get outta here, I gotta get my rest," and Chen offers to help him back on the bed, an offer he declines, so she gathers up her charts and says, "Catch you tomorrow," and as she bustles out, Carter turns his wheelchair away from the door and begins to grimace in pain -- emotional rather than physical, I suspect -- but before he can give in to it, Chen stops and says, "Oh, uh, John," then notices his distress and asks, "Are you okay?" "Yeah, fine," he gasps, holding his hands near his face so she can't see it. "Listen, take it easy, okay?" she says, and she finally leaves as Carter half-groans, as brightly as he can manage while visibly praying for her to go, "Yeah, thanks, Deb!" He closes his eyes and winces.
The ER. Holling arrives. Mark gives him guff about the Mama Corday thing. Holling observes that Elizabeth didn't seem "too amused" and says he and MC probably shouldn't have used Elizabeth's apartment for their liaison, and Mark tells him not to worry about it. Holling says they'll check into a hotel that night, "it'll be easier for everyone," and Mark expresses some surprise that "this is an ongoing thing," and Holling snorts that it isn't a one-night stand, and he gets on the elevator and asks which floor the pulmonologist is on. Mark tells him the fifth floor. Holling stops the doors from closing and says, "I like her, Mark. She makes me happy. Now, I'm sorry if that makes you unhappy --" Mark interrupts with a bemused smile that he didn't say that, but Holling reminds Mark that MC will return to London in a couple of weeks, "and I'll be back on your sofabed. And then we can both be unhappy." He gives Mark an evil smile and lets the doors close. Heh. I love Holling. Mark shakes his head and walks off.
"How many has she slept with?" Kerry asks Carol. Carol says judgmentally that she doesn't know: "Both girls have been going to these sex parties at school friends' houses." "Oh my god, at their age?" Kerry sighs. Carol fulminates about the fact that she told Andrea she wouldn't say anything to Andrea's parents, and that legally she can't. Kerry finds a loophole, saying that Andrea's a minor who needs surgery, and Carol mutters that maybe she can "talk her into letting me tell her parents." Kerry stops Carol and says she understands that Carol doesn't want to betray the confidentiality, "but this is a public-health issue now," adding that at least one of those boys is spreading HPV, so all the girls who go to the parties need to come in for pelvic exams and Pap smears, and whatever Carol tells Andrea, she also needs to call the girls' school.
Okay, sidebar. I don't pretend to know much medical lore. Most of what I know or interject into these recaps comes either from personal experience or from my Stedman's. I've never had HPV, but I do know that simply having HPV does not necessarily lead to cervical cancer, and that many strains of HPV have no carcinogenic risk at all. It's not like the ER writers to indulge in such irresponsible alarmism. And now, the PSA portion of the sidebar, in which I encourage all women sixteen or older, sexually active or not, to visit a GYN or midwife at least once a year for a pelvic exam and Pap smear, for the sake of your reproductive health. It's uncomfortable. It's a hassle. It's yucky. It's also extremely important. Do it. And when you do, ask your GYN or midwife about HPV; don't listen to the tommyrot this episode passes off as information. Okay, end sidebar.
All righty -- so Carol goes into Andrea's curtain area and finds, surprise surprise, that she and Terri have taken off. She asks Malik if he saw a girl in a school uniform, and he says he saw two; they just left. "Dammit!" Carol says, and runs out into the ambulance bay. She passes a blonde woman coming in with a cardboard box. It's Lucy's mom, Barbara Knight, and she has to deal with a completely obtuse Dr. Dave at the front desk, who misses his snap by a country mile when she introduces herself and asks for Dr. Greene, or Dr. Weaver. When she asks in a quavering voice where she can find the lounge area (cough cough) so that she can check her daughter's locker (COUGH COUGH), Dave finally gets the hint. At least he has the grace to look chagrined.
Cut to the lounge. Dave says he doesn't have the combination to Lucy's locker, but Barbara says she got it from the med school. As The Piano Of Poignancy plays, she opens it up, then begins to cry silently as she looks inside at Lucy's CDs, and an apple, and some nasal spray, all arrayed on the top shelf. Dave looks uncomfortable. Barbara weeps and puts Lucy's things into the box.
After the commercials, more uninteresting Corday infighting. Elizabeth: you neglected me for your career. Mama Corday: no, I didn't, and since you didn't hold your father to such a high standard, get over it, and yourself. Elizabeth: [pout].
Kerry peers into Ron's room, then inquires -- rather kindly, for Kerry -- of Abby why she ordered a test Kerry explicitly told her "was unnecessary." Abby says she just has a feeling about Ron: "Maybe it's a nursing instinct or something, but the guy does not look well." Kerry breaks in to point out that "it's the middle of winter, nobody looks well," and adds over Abby's protests that medical students don't order tests they're told not to: "It's a waste of your time and his money. Cut him loose." Abby stands in the middle of the hall, clenching and unclenching her jaw, and Luka materializes behind her and walks past. Exhaustedly, he tells her to come get him if Benton calls downstairs; he's going across the street to get something to eat. "I thought you weren't on," Abby says, and Luka makes "don't ask" noises and tells her he isn't as he keeps walking. Then he stops and turns to look at the patient he just passed, who's having a cut on his forehead dressed by Malik. He glares at the guy, then walks back to the admit desk and mutters to Abby, "Abby, call the police." The patient, who we now recognize as the hit-and-run driver from before, regards Luka nervously and starts to get up, and Malik tells him to settle down so he can finish with the laceration, and Luka tells Abby, "Call them now," and the driver jumps up and pushes Malik aside, shouting, "Get outta my way," and Luka chases him and grabs his arm and tells him he's not leaving and yells, "What the hell is wrong with you?" and Malik tries to get in between Luka and the driver, and the driver flails all girly-style at Luka to get him to let go and whinges, "Get offa me!" and Luka snarls, "You just left her there!" The driver pretends not to know what Luka's talking about, and Luka snarls again, "You hit her and then left. Malik, call security." The driver pushes Luka again and repeats that he doesn't know what Luka's talking about, and Luka pins the driver against the desk with one hand and points a finger in the driver's face with the other, hollering, "Yes, you know -- I saw you and I can identify you!" By now, everyone near the desk has stopped to watch the confrontation; the driver, realizing he isn't going to get around Darth Luka, says weakly, "It was an accident," and Luka, who still has his hand on the driver's chest, shouts, "Yeah? And you just drove off? Hit and run?" The driver says, "I was scared, okay?" and starts to explain, but Luka is making himself at home in the driver's face: "So was that little girl!" The driver starts talking fast: he panicked because he already had a couple of DUIs, but he hadn't been drinking today, and "it all happened so fast," he didn't know what to do. Luka, disgusted: "Yeah, but you knew enough to run away, huh?" The driver asks if Luka brought the girl to the ER: "Is she all right?" Luka, barely in control of himself, growls, "You don't have the right to ask."
Carol walks through the snow on the campus of a prep school. She stops when she sees a gaggle of girls talking, looks at them with saintly concern, and keeps walking.
Abby walks Ron out through the ambulance bay doors. Ron thinks maybe he "was just being a hypochondriac, thinking something was wrong." "No, you were right to come in," Abby assures him, "and -- and you'd be right to come back." Ron thanks her, puts on his gloves, says he'll keep an eye on it, and makes to leave; Abby calls after him, "Say for example, in fifteen or twenty minutes, if you were feeling feverish or sick to your stomach, you might want to get that checked out?" "But you just saw me," Ron says. Abby says pointedly that she might not see him, but someone would see him, and they'll want to examine him thoroughly. "Are you saying I'm not okay?" Ron asks her. "I'm just saying -- that it's been an awfully bad flu season," Abby says, and heads back inside. Ron thinks it over. I have to admit that I don't understand what happened there.
A shot of feet and the legs of a walker. Carter is working on walking; an aide walks beside him. He stumbles a bit and grimaces in pain, and the aide steadies him and asks if he wants to take a break, but Carter says he's okay. The aide doesn't believe him and says he's had enough, and Carter can wait there while he goes to get the wheelchair, but Carter snaps, "I said I can do it. I just want to get back to my room." The aide sort of shrugs, and Carter begins hitching towards his room again, but he stops after three or four hitches. Cut to Barbara Knight: "Dr. Carter?" Carter nods and looks dazed.
Back to the prep school. Carol is leaving one of the school buildings and fastening her coat when she runs smack into Andrea and Terri. Terri sneers, "What are you doing here?" Andrea looks woundedly at Carol, and Carol tries to tell Andrea she needs to talk to her as Terri goes on, "You narced us out, didn't you? Get away -- you promised, you bitch!" The girls stomp off, and Carol follows them, pleading with Andrea that she needs to come back in. Andrea, on the point of tears, snaps, "You said there were rules and that you couldn't break them," and Carol dithers, "I know what I said, but I can't," and Andrea says, "You lied to me," and Terri pipes up, "To both of us." Carol tells Andrea all condescendingly that "it is a lot more complicated than that -- your health is in danger, and other girls could get infected too." Andrea, her voice breaking: "Now everyone's gonna know everything." The girls turn and hurry away, and Carol tries to follow them again, calling, "Andrea? Andrea!" but they lose her. Carol looks smug and glum at the same time.
Corday looks at the board and says something about rescheduling a bowel resection. Holling comes up beside her, and they have a chat about what happened that morning, and Holling apologizes if he made her uncomfortable or made things awkward between her and her mother; Elizabeth says he didn't cause any trouble "that wasn't there already," and Holling asks why they don't get along, and Elizabeth shrugs, "Mothers and daughters, I suppose." Holling tells her she doesn't "get to own the whole ranch on that one; let's save a little corner for fathers and sons," and Elizabeth chuckles. They have more cutesy chit-chat about children growing up to become adults, having opinions of their own, blah blah blah fishcakes, and then Holling suggests that the four of them go out that night and "sort of bury the hatchet."
Downstairs, Kerry asks Lily, "Abby didn't discharge him?" and Lily says that she did, but he "bounced back." Apparently, Ron 2: Electric Bugaloo has arrived back in the ER, and Kerry comes in to find Chen ordering blood on the rapid infuser. Lily tells Kerry that Ron complained of fever and abdominal pain, and Chen adds that he has a GI bleed, and when she did a rectal, "he started gushing." Okay, ew. The camera pans around to show the area around poor Ron's tuchis drenched with red food coloring. Okay, ew, again. "Probably a bleeding tic," Kerry murmurs. "Type and cross four units and call the OR." "Yep, already did," Chen says. "Thank god he came back in." Kerry looks suspiciously at Ron's unconscious form.
Upstairs, Barbara Knight unloads on Carter, telling him that "Chicago wasn't even [Lucy's] first choice, she was hoping for San Francisco," and she babbles on for a bit about how Lucy fell in love with San Fran after one ride on a cable car, but she grew to love Chicago, blah dee blah, as Carter shifts uncomfortably in his seat and winces. "You don't need to hear all this," Barbara says apologetically. "No, it's fine," Carter says, and he sounds sincere. Barbara says she just wanted to stop by and thank Carter; Lucy used to talk about Carter all the time, and "she had a lot of respect for" Carter, and Barbara knows Carter must have taught Lucy a lot. Carter, unable to speak for a moment due to the fact that an anvil has landed on his chest, tells Barbara that Lucy "worked with all the residents, not just me." "I know," Barbara says, "But you're the one she used to mention." Carter looks down, his face working, and it seems like he might say something, but he doesn't. Barbara says that Lucy loved her work, and Carter finally comes up with, "She -- she was better than I ever gave her credit for." Barbara looks away from his gaze and starts to cry; Carter continues to look at Barbara with a strange expression on his face. Barbara sniffles, "Can I ask you something?" Carter nods slowly and says yes, and Barbara asks, "When you were -- well, when that man stabbed you, what did you think?" Carter flinches as Barbara corrects herself, "No, I mean -- what did it feel like?" Carter stares at her and nods again, and says, "Well, um --" and pauses for a long time to consider, and then he tells her gently, "It happened really fast, and I didn't really know what was going on . . . but I didn't feel a thing." "No pain?" Barbara asks, and Carter shakes his head and says no, "no pain." Barbara nods, seeming to accept this lie, and looks away; Carter watches her, as if checking to make sure she bought it.
Elsewhere, Mark comes up and gives a radiologist crap for not getting some test results back to him. After a bit of good-natured banter, Mark asks if the radiologist read a chest film for David Greene that day. The radiologist says he doesn't know and tells Mark to "check the pile." Mark finds the films and throws them up on a light board while the radiologist continues to bitch about people wanting "wet reads yesterday" and over-ordering CT scans, and as he drones on in the background, Mark stares numbly at the cloudy mass of cancer on his father's x-ray. When Mark doesn't say anything for a minute, the radiologist says, "Hey Mark, you okay?" He gets up and joins Mark in looking at the film, then asks Mark quietly, "That's your dad?" "Yeah," Mark says grimly. "Whoa, I -- I'm sorry," the radiologist tells him.
You want fun? Leave your captioning on during a Nissan Maxima commercial. I love the little comments like "[rock guitar blast]" and "[drum solo]" during the Who song. Then Roger Daltrey goes, "YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH," but the captions just say, "Yeah," with a couple of little notes on either side. Okay, so I need to get out more.
Corday pesters Mark about the mysterious plans Holling made for the four of them, and Mark obviously isn't listening as she rambles on about the "wear jeans" element scaring her, and her mother doesn't even own a pair of jeans, and she wishes Mark could get off so they could face their parents "together," and finally she gets the hint and asks Mark if he's all right because he's monosyllabic, and he says he's fine, he just has to finish some cases and he'll have to meet them there. Elizabeth says okay and kisses him goodbye.
Kerry and Carol walk past, and Kerry asks what happened at the school, and Carol grouses that the school said they'd follow through, "but the girls saw me there." "I suppose they didn't listen to you this time either," Kerry says mildly, and Carol says no, they ran away. Kerry assures her that she did the right thing; Carol studies her messages and says she's still going to call Andrea later. Yeah, good luck with that.
Kerry crutches over to Abby, who's tending to a patient, and tells her that Ron has gone up to the OR for a laparotomy; Abby says she'd heard that: "Is he gonna be okay?" Kerry says probably, and that he has a bleeding diverticulum, and I would give you the definition of "diverticulum," but when I got to the words "stagnant fecal matter," I had to go and lie down for about a year and a half, but long story short, it isn't related to the hemorrhoids, so Abby called it correctly. Kerry then says oh-so-casually, "You know, it's pretty lucky that he checked himself back in." Abby says, "Yeah. I'm gonna go check on him later." Kerry tells Abby, "You were right. There was something else wrong with him." "Just a gut feeling," Abby says modestly, and Kerry says pointedly that Ron could have bled to death if he hadn't come back, and Abby remarks that "it's a good thing he felt flu-ish," and Kerry smiles, "That's exactly what he said -- 'flu-ish.'" Busted! But she doesn't seem angry, and as she heads off, Abby looks embarrassed and pleased with herself at the same time.
In the OR lounge, Peter comes out to talk to Mrs. Williams, a.k.a. Laura's Mom. Luka sits to Mrs. W. Peter tells her that Laura "came out of surgery very well," and she smiles broadly with relief as Luka closes his eyes and rests his head on his folded hands. Peter tells Mrs. W that the nurse will bring her to see Laura, and she rushes away, but stops to say, "Thank you -- both of you," to Peter and Luka. Peter makes to leave; Luka gets up and follows him and apologizes for his behavior before. "Yeah, come on, I understand," Peter says. Luka asks if Peter repaired Laura's hepatic vein, and Peter says he put some kind of shunt in: "It'll be a long recovery, but she should be fine." Then he smiles and tells Luka, "You saved her life." Luka sighs, "Yeah, I'm not so sure. You had to open her chest in the ER to fix my mistake." Peter points out that they would have had to do that anyway, because "the liver laceration was a life-threatening injury. Look, if you had waited for the ambulance, she might not have made it." "It's impossible to know," Luka mutters. Luka, please. Enough with the modesty. You're a stone fox who's handy with plumbing. That's enough for me, really. Please go down to the flaw store and pick yourself out something nice, because the perfect-man thing is killing me. Anyway, Peter tells him, "Listen to me, you made a call. That took a lot of guts." Luka looks doubtful.
An ambulance pulls up, sirens going, and we see Andrea on the gurney, unconscious, as Dave asks, "What do we got?" The paramedic tells Dave that Andrea was found on the bathroom floor, presumed overdose, no suicide note "but a lot of bottles in the cabinet," and Dave asks about narcotics. The paramedic says no, Andrea's "lethargic but arousable," and as they come in through the ambulance bay, Kerry exclaims, "Andrea!" The paramedic keeps running off the stats for Dave -- Andrea took the pills about an hour ago -- and Carol cringes and runs out from behind the desk, and she asks Andrea what she took, and Andrea tells her to shut up and get away from her (word), and Dave asks Carol if she knows Andrea, and Carol tells him Andrea came in this morning and has "newly diagnosed cervical cancer." The team heads into a trauma room as Kerry shouts out test orders, and they hoist Andrea onto the table as Carol announces that they'll have to pump Andrea's stomach and starts to set up for that; Dave tells her to "take it easy," that Andrea may not need a lavage. Carol asks the paramedic if he brought the pill bottles, and he says he did, but the bag he had them in fell off the gurney, and Carol tells him irritably to go find them because "we're gonna need them." Kerry suggests that Carol step out, and Dave wonders aloud, "Are you running this?" Carol calls off some stats and equipment orders, and Dave regards her with confusion; Kerry looks at Carol with concern but doesn't say anything else.
Upstairs, Peter walks beside Carter as Carter wheels himself down the hall and teases Peter, "So, tonight's the jazz club." Peter says that it's a pretty good spot, and a good group is playing that Cleo knows also. "Uh huh," Carter chuckles. "What's that supposed to mean?" Peter wants to know, and Carter laughs, "Nothing -- you're right on schedule." Peter sighs in mock exasperation, "All right, Carter -- give it to me." Carter busts on Peter's dating predictability: "Weeeell, first there was probably coffee in the cafeteria, and then dinner in a nice but well-lit restaurant, nothing too obvious; then maybe a sporting event; and tonight's the jazz club." Peter looks annoyed as Carter adds in a mack-daddy voice, "We all know what happens after the jazz club." Ha! Peter snipes, "Just when did you lose the filter between your brain and your mouth?" Carter thinks Peter may have removed it "in the OR last week." Carter runs into the doorjamb of his room with his wheelchair, and when Peter moves to help him, Carter snaps, "I got it -- I got it. Dammit!" and keeps clunking against the jamb and into furniture near the doorway. Finally, Peter sorts him out by saying "Carter" about ten times and wheeling him into his room, and he asks gently, "You okay?" Carter massages his elbow and says, apropos of nothing, "I lied to Lucy's mother today, I told her that it wasn't painful to have an eight-inch knife shoved into your gut." Peter doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing; Carter leans his head back and closes his eyes. Peter stands up straight. The Carter-Benton relationship is my favorite on the show. More Carter and less Cleo, please.
Back downstairs, Terri comes barreling into the trauma room. Carol stops her and says she has to calm down, and asks her if she knows what Andrea took; Terri doesn't know, and says Andrea "was just lying on the floor" in her parents' bathroom, and Carol asks again if Terri knows what was there, and Terri isn't sure: "Lots of stuff, Tylenol, aspirin --" Carol interrupts to ask about prescription medications, and Terri reports that her dad sometimes takes pills for his back, and Carol asks if she remembers what they're called. Terri says, "Diaz -- diaze --" and Kerry correctly guesses diazepam. Andrea's stats continue to worsen; Dave describes Andrea as "barely responsive," and Carol wants to intubate, but Dave tells her to chill, that he can "bag her," and Carol snaps that Andrea might vomit and aspirate. Carol, why don't you not tell the doctors how to do their jobs, mmm-kay? Kerry asks about antidepressants, and Terri says there weren't any; Kerry asks if she's sure, and Terri says yes. Kerry then asks about a history of seizures, and Carol and Terri both say no at the same time, so Kerry orders flumazenil. Carol shouts that Andrea is hypoxic, and she hands the tube to Dave and says, "Here's the tube -- intubate," and Dave tells her to "slow down, Carol -- give the flumazenil a chance to work," and he says it a lot more nicely than I would have. Carol snarls at him, "We have to protect her airway!" Just then, Andrea pulls the bag away from her face and sits bolt upright, looking panicky, and Dave says, "Good, it worked." "Wh -- what am I doing here?" Andrea asks. Terri looks relieved. Carol tells Andrea, "Terri found you. Do you remember taking the pills?" Andrea, confused: "What?" "It'll be okay, Andrea," Kerry says, and Terri wails, "God, Andrea, what did you do?" Dave orders charcoal, "now." Carol looks somber. And insufferable.
Cut to a bowling alley. The Cordays and Holling bowl. Elizabeth has a cropped top on, which looks really wrong on her. Her mother expresses the desire for a martini, and I can totally relate. Holling encourages them and asks what's become of Mark. "He'll be here," Elizabeth tells him, and then mutters, "I hope." The Cordays talk some more about the sad state of their relationship, and I really don't care enough to transcribe much of it, so suffice it to say that nothing gets resolved but they end up laughing.
Carol comes into the trauma room and takes over from Conni. A listless Andrea has charcoal residue all around her mouth and on the front of her gown. Carol tucks a blanket around her and whispers that she had to tell the school about the HPV so the other students could get tested -- which I don't buy -- but that she hasn't told Andrea's parents, or Terri's. "You haven't?" Andrea says hopefully. Carol says she hoped Andrea would tell them herself. Andrea's face hardens and she looks away. Carol makes an impatient moue and asks, "If something happened to one of them, wouldn't you want to know?" Andrea looks back at Carol, shakes her head, and looks away again. Carol practically rolls her eyes. Dear writers: if you think we'll side with Carol on this, think again. She's a self-righteous busybody. Bring Doug back, marry them off, and get rid of her meddling ass. Signed, the world.
Back to the bowling alley. Mark watches the cheerful tableau of Holling and the Cordays and waits for them to notice him. Holling eventually hails him, and Elizabeth asks what kept him; Mark says, "Nothing," and Mama Corday invites him to sit down and have a drink. Holling jokes with Mark about how terribly the Cordays bowl, and then tells him he'll "be back on the sofa tonight" because MC has decided to stay with Elizabeth for a "mother-daughter fest." Mark sits down to put on his bowling shoes and watches his father advising Elizabeth on her technique.
Peter and Cleo, walking to the jazz club. Cleo says she didn't know Carter used to be a surgical intern, and Peter explains that Carter "wasn't really cut out for it" even though he was good at it and smart: "He used to spend all of his time talking to the patients, used to drive me crazy." Peter tells a story about the time Morgenstern made Carter hold a retractor for four hours, and Carter "never broke a sweat, never dropped it." "He's gonna be all right, Peter," Cleo tells him as they arrive at the door of the jazz club, and as Peter hunts in his pockets for the tickets, Cleo wonders if he's sure he wants to go in, since they won't "be able to talk." She suggests getting a coffee instead, and Peter looks at the tickets and says as he puts them away, "You're gonna disappoint Carter," and as they walk away, Cleo wants to know what that means, and Peter keeps laughing, "Nothing."
At Greene Acres, Holling gets ready for bed. Mark appears in the doorway and says, "That was fun tonight," and Holling chuckles, "Yeah, it was." Mark needs to talk to Holling about something: "I saw your scan today, and you have lung cancer which has spread to your liver." After a pause, Holling draws on his bathrobe and says, "Yeah . . . that's what the doctors in San Diego said too." Mark is astounded: "How long have you known?" I'm astounded as well; I think that, if you don't treat liver cancer, you have about six weeks to live, so shouldn't Holling have died months ago? "For awhile," Holling murmurs. Mark asks why Holling didn't tell him. Holling asks if he remembers Rear Admiral Norris, and Mark says he couldn't forget him because he had a thumb missing and used to scare Mark to death as a kid; Holling says that Norris had cancer: "Every time I laid eyes on him, all I could think was, 'Poor old bastard, he's got cancer.' He lived another twelve years. But still, every time I saw him . . . I didn't want it to define me, Mark." Mark gapes at him from the doorway as he goes on, "I didn't want to see it in people's eyes -- I didn't want to see it at all. And -- I'm scared." Mark stands with a furrowed brow and says nothing.